SMN/RDM..An alternative guide..My experiences.

[DrMrLordX]

A few thoughts:

1). INT determines resistance to magical damage, not MND. MND determines resistance to enemy status effects. If you don't believe me, sit down and talk to a smart/experienced BLM about two handy little spells called Burn and Shock.

2). INT only affects black-magic enfeebles. For RDM, this means poison/poison II, blind, gravity, bind, and dispel. MND affects white-magic enfeebles. For RDM, this means paralyze, slow, and silence.

3). If you are casting Slow with a lower MND than your party RDM or WHM, then you are doing harm to your party. Read this:

http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/sho...highlight=Slow

Unless your MND is 81 or higher, you will produce a weaker Slow than will your compatriots with a higher MND. If every enfeebler in the party has 81 MND or more, then Slow should have the same potency for everyone.

[fyrewyre]

Being rdm/smn has changed my MP problems (saves an average of 40[refresh cost]x5[amount of times i have to refresh myself]=160MP by not refreshing myself and doing the pld, blm, and whm instead) from low MP at the end of a battle to about half way give or take. i tried /rdm for smn but i guess im too low to really see the benefeits. i was told playing SMN is more like revolving pokemon since the 1 min timer is all too stressing. When i hit smn 30 then i'll try the fast cast and fast cast belt or cape (i heard it was introduced recently) i think fast cast is a great attribute to smn and getting in an extra 3 casts total in a battle would be a major improvement.

One thing i wish is that they added in more BP abilites so a sub can get something more usefull (summon wise) out of it like most jobs. So far the stackable abilities are always nice to have. Not to go off topic, but after reading that link from the poster above and seeing the poor results of MP conserve i think i'll leave /blm alone. For now i'll stick to the /whm till i hit 30 but in all honesty i like the protectra but i run into PTs who invite me and i see a pld, rdm, melee, melee, melee and im sure you all know how that feels lol, they gotta realize we're not a whm.

[sudo]

the int and mnd points have been argued to death on the main rdm forums. The end conclusion and concensus is that blm based spells, all of them, including elemental damage, and blm enfeebles, including burn, shock, etc etc, are all INT based. Damage and resistance to them are both based on INT.

MND is used for checks on whm bases enfeebles and attack magic which includes paralyze, slow, holy, banish, etc. INT doesn't affect these and mnd doesn't affect the other set. MND is used for resisting such attacks and to ensure that they land.

Also I would like some clarification on avatar things stacking with already existing spells. I've been hit by most avatar abilities during the smn lv 20 battles. They added the same effect icon on my screen. i.e. rolling thunder gave me a regular "paralyzed" icon. It is not like carbuncle's special added protect/shell icon wich is along side the protect and shell icons which leads me to believe that most of the avatar attack abilities do not stack at all with the regular spell. I haven't been hit by a tail whip yet but I intend to test this out next time in ballesta on my buddy to see what happens.

Brd elegy uses a musical note icon, while the whm slow adds a white circle with an arrow in it down icon. These are seperate icons which leads me to suspect that they are stackable abilities.

[Deadsoulja]

I think that SMN/RDM would just be better for soloing. Being as a SMN alone doesnt have enfeebling magic skill or elemental and so forth, those skill levels will be based solely on what the level is on the subjob. So if your trying to stick blind on a level 75 enemy, it will be like a level 37 RDM casting blind on him, i would say a very high percentage of them will be resisted. Even if it did stick it wouldn't be as effective or last as long as if a RDM or BLM had casted it. It's always something good to have leveled but i think /WHM is overall a better combination for a SMN for the -na spells and divine seal.

[Rones]

2)It helps determine if an enfeeble is resisted or not.
his is so important as a smn/rdm its not funny. The more INT you have the better you are. Dont worry if some spells are resisted , the vast majority will not be.

At 66 whm I have 203 enfeebling skill and 65mnd base +32 from gear. A 66 rdm has around ~225 enfeebling skill and a little less mnd. That 20 skill difference between me and the redmage results in the resist rate going from 1/5 (rdm) to arond 1/2 (whm) depending on the mob. Now imagine a 66 smn/rdm with ~100skill trying to enfeeble it. :sweat: Same reason nukes from a rdm or blm sub are totally ineffective, the skill lvl is too low and will always get resisted (with exceptions for dia and bio that can't be resisted, but can wear off near instantly).

I realize how old that faq is, but things like that can potentialy give new smn's bad ideas on how to play. A correction or just removeal of that part of the guide would probably be pretty helpful to new smns. :sweat:

[sudo]

old topic but I feel that it should be pointed out that a smn should never cast debuffs on the enemy if soloing espically at higher lvs on exp mobs. on too weak, the avatar will win quickly enough anyway so disregard for most situations cept at higher lv's.

A smn soloing is like a bst soloing.

A pet is far weaker than a mob of EM value to the player even with capped smn skill.

Your pet will die in the course of battle, espically so with a smn avatar. They don't have the HP's to survive very long and have almost nil hate holding ability.

Their death nesseciates the use of multiple avatars much like in the solo fights for those that did it. This means you want as little hate on yourself as possible. translated to mean, you want your pet to do 100% of the work which means you don't debuff at all.

Bind is impossible to stick with 1/2 skill at lvs greater than 30 with any sort of success. Just don't expect it to save you. The fast cast ability of rdm will however help a bit when it comes to switching pets.

So while I agree, a smn/rdm would be a very nice solo job, I would personally rather go smn/nin for blinks during my recasts as all my MP are already going towards avatar maintaince.

[bukkake-fighter]

hmmm

as open ended as I am, I think smn/rdm only puts a burden on the party by not being as effective as a smn/whm. Your nukes and enfeblees are pretty subpar and useless in terms of hit rate and damage rate. Plus you get less mp. Having fun and all is great but I wouldnt expect to get too many good pts going with this one.

[tazirai]

Re: hmmm

Originally posted by bukkake-fighter
as open ended as I am, I think smn/rdm only puts a burden on the party by not being as effective as a smn/whm. Your nukes and enfeblees are pretty subpar and useless in terms of hit rate and damage rate. Plus you get less mp. Having fun and all is great but I wouldnt expect to get too many good pts going with this one.

HI thanks for your insight.. but i must say out of 70 levels I only had issues with NA players with rdm subbed. not JPN or the Euro importers.
So i can attest that it works and works good. But each his own.

[bukkake-fighter]

work

The reason why I say this and I always prefer the optimal configuration is because I don't have much time to play so I would like to get as much exp as possible. But I understand everyone has thier own style. I don't see how any of your debuff can hit if you have 1/2 enfeeble magic lvl. I was not aware summoner had any of these stats.

[July]

Hey plus there's always the possibility of getting convert. Before anyone starts saying how 75 is the cap forever and mentions the merit points read this: http://ffo.warcry.com/scripts/column...306&colid=4615

"The merit point system, which was just introduced, will include growth elements for every character. Even with the release of Chains of Promathia, we intend to push gameplay in this direction. However, if necessary, we will consider raising the level cap."

So it's a possibility and it's just another notch away. But I'm not sure how convert will help anyway. *shrugs* Could your avatar be out during convert?

Well anyway it's nice that you're trying something new and making it into a new optium. Hopefully it contiunes to work out.

[sudo]

oh ya one more reason to sub rdm

warlock's earring (Rare)
lv 30 all jobs
latent effect : +1 MP regneration.

(active whenever you have /rdm)

This one is nice ^^ and I feel is more useful than the -1 enemenity of the /whm earring.

Besides, the only other stuff we can throw in this slot are like valor earrings and that +3 hp/mp just isn't all that big of a deal.

Since smn has clear mind by itself, the subjob clear mind does not stack with it as far as I know. This would give that extra little bit of regeneration.

This is however in trade for protectra, all the -a spells, and erase for dispel (at lv 64 bst/rdm on IT worked 4/5 times) and Dia II/Bio.

But personally if you already got a whm or something in the pt. I would perfer to sub rdm and wear this earring.

If you got the cash, there's also a lv 30 cape that enhances fast cast if you sub rdm but I don't have 1.5 million gil to throw around :sweat:

[F.R.I.E.N.D.S]

Hi
great work u did there Tazirai i appreciate it
&
i wanna ask 1 question
i don't want to open 1 hole thread for 1 newbie question ^.^
i want to be a Summoner ~(reason for buying the game)
and i can't wait to be 30 ..
Someone gave me an "ODD" advice..
he told me that: "Dude if u wanna be a SMN u better lvl up ur main job to at least 50 "
and he said something about getting fenrir
hell i didn't understand anything..
XD so please can u explain to me what the hell did he said !?
Sorry for intrusion

[tazirai]

Originally posted by F.R.I.E.N.D.S
Hi
great work u did there Tazirai i appreciate it
&
i wanna ask 1 question
i don't want to open 1 hole thread for 1 newbie question ^.^
i want to be a Summoner ~(reason for buying the game)
and i can't wait to be 30 ..
Someone gave me an "ODD" advice..
he told me that: "Dude if u wanna be a SMN u better lvl up ur main job to at least 50 "
and he said something about getting fenrir
hell i didn't understand anything..
XD so please can u explain to me what the hell did he said !?
Sorry for intrusion

Hes basically giving you advice on getting to a level where you may be able to contribute to a Fenrir fight. Basically if you want to solo all the level 20 BC fights against the avatars its perfectly fine.
But to get the whispers to get to the Fenrir fight, you should be at least level 50 in order to be able to help during said fight.

Also level 50 is good for a whm for other reasons higher heals and raises. Theres tons of mercenaries who will do the fight for gil for you , but they expect to be compensated for their effort and even then will not take someone of too low a level.

When you hit level 50 you can try to get 5 Summoners to assist in getting Fenrir for you, Your role will be to help with raises and -Na spells and perhaps a teleport-mea.

[F.R.I.E.N.D.S]

hmm..
ok thanks
please 1 more question
i lvled my whm to 20 ,
and i lvled my blm (sub) to 8 ,
but holy i get bored =(
i can't wait to get to jeuno and see qufim lol
i went there with whm20/blm8,
but hell i get many lame Whispers, they told me u should level up ur sub
and i told 1 to come to my party he said lvl ur sub first & i don't like noobs in my party,
other white mage called me noob because my blm is low !
atm i'm leveling the blm
suddenly yesterday i get to level 9 =^.^= my hp was 9 , while healing i get aggroed by a gob ,.. and i dead i lvled down with 300- exp
i closed the ps2 from the main cable.. i was so mad
i didn't play it for like 2 days
i hate lvling blm
tell me what to do..

[tazirai]

Originally posted by F.R.I.E.N.D.S
hmm..
ok thanks
please 1 more question
i lvled my whm to 20 ,
and i lvled my blm (sub) to 8 ,
but holy i get bored =(
i can't wait to get to jeuno and see qufim lol
i went there with whm20/blm8,
but hell i get many lame Whispers, they told me u should level up ur sub
and i told 1 to come to my party he said lvl ur sub first & i don't like noobs in my party,
other white mage called me noob because my blm is low !
atm i'm leveling the blm
suddenly yesterday i get to level 9 =^.^= my hp was 9 , while healing i get aggroed by a gob ,.. and i dead i lvled down with 300- exp
i closed the ps2 from the main cable.. i was so mad
i didn't play it for like 2 days
i hate lvling blm
tell me what to do..

in FFXI its very important to level your sub. At first your stat ups may seem insubstantial but they are worth it in the long run.
Also a leveled sub and equipment good for your level is a sign of a player that wants to be noticed. And also of a player that puts the effort into his character. I suggest you level BLM to 20 then switch back to WHM.
The reason is that you can then take whm to level 42 and not worry about having to level your sub job.

the reason i say 42 is because you wont see the 42/21 difference until you are 42. So that gives you 22 levels of WHM to play with and the ability to get your artifact weapon.

Also there are boring parts in this game , Its not "fun"100% of the time. More like 90% give or take a death. hehe

do some research and try to not let others get you down.